I think Robert’s free graphic is a great marketing tool to use on Realtor websites or real estate photographers websites.

As I was writing this post I clicked on the Robert’s listing that he has linked to his page where he is giving away the info-graphic and noticed that the listing photos had a bad case of verticals and bad barrel distortion. I pointed that out to Robert and fixed the photos for him. This is a great example of the fact that it’s important for Realtors and photographers to know what effective real estate photos look like and not just assume that because you pay someone to take real estate photos the photos will look professional. This is exactly what my free PDF, What Realtors Need to Know About Photography is for. It lists the 10 things that make real estate photos professional. It’s more than just using a DSLR. Perhaps Robert and I should give away my PDF and his graphic together. Robert says he’s like to do that so we’ll probably do that soon.

Thanks Robert for creating this graphic and sharing with everyone! It is great to find a Realtor that is passionate about real estate photography!

Great graphic! Particurally like the aggressive, in you face, “FIRE THEM!” Granted it may be somewhat problematic after they signed a listing agreement and an expensive out clause that may or may not be waived. Overall, the graphic is clean and really gets the point across.

Thanks for sharing the links, but may not be practical and need to construct similar from scratch. Understandably wanting credit with “Feel free to use this Infographic by copying and pasting the following code. Just be sure to cite Ruxta as the source!” and may be viable in a blog setting where informally introducing with ‘my friends at Ruxta’, may be problematic in more formal settings. While I didn’t throw the code into an HTML editor to see how it behaved, I wondered what was RuxtaRealty.com. I went there and the landing page was a search engine for Wilmington, NC and Ruxta wasn’t some national syndicator I never heard of…but the local Keller Williams franchise. That could be problematic.

I think graphics are a good marketing tool when you need to sell someone on your services in the first 3.5 seconds when they’re actually paying attention. For photographers, I think the graphic should include the Million + stat because that’s the really impressive one. I understand a real estate office not wanting to include it because they wouldn’t want to over-sell the influence of pro photography if their particular market doesn’t match these numbers.

This says it all. For those of you that are doing the under $100 joke for re photography, put an end to it and start charging what you are really worth. If you are at the $100 or less level, you are doing yourself a huge disservicethe rest of us, I might add) and , and you are losing money. You can’t walk out the door and make a profit in that range. If your work is not worth more, quit, you don’t belong doing this. If it is worth more, then grow some ba__s and stand up for the value of your work.

By the way, ever notice that even if you are charging a pitance for your work, no one really appreciates it?

Unfortunately, this also illustrates the dilemma that agents are in, and doing the math, gives them an argument not to have professional photos for homes under $500k. They only get a small percentage of that increased price, so to ask for $200 for photos vs free means they need to have a price increase of $6700 (3%) or $3300 (6%) just to break even. Even more if you take into account the broker’s cut, etc.. This seems to me to make a better argument for having the sellers cover the cost of photos instead of the agent.

There should also be a graphic for less time on market for listings with professional photos.

@Shawn – A couple of things:
1- My personal experience is that it is short sighted and not good business expect to recoup the cost of photography individually on each listing. The real benefit of doing top notch marketing consistently is you get MORE listings and that adds up big time.. my wife and I have gotten many listings just because people in the neighborhood saw some twilight shots. All it takes is one or two more listings a year and that pays for photography on all an agents listings for the year.

2- Yes my intuition tells me that great photography reduces market time too, BUT the data from 2 independent studies indicates that it increases market time.

Oh, I definitely agree with you on the more listings aspect. I was just commenting on using only the increased sales prices as a marketing point. I think there are stronger arguments (like your point) to the agent.

Another aspect is that good realistic photography reduces the wasted time and energy showing properties to people because they couldn’t really tell what it looked like, but asked to see it anyways. If there was good photography, they may have known they don’t want to see the property, or vice-versa, when someone decides to see a property that they might have otherwise not wanted to see.